Geoffrey Burling

Buy Geoffrey Burling a coffee

Geoffrey Burling's story

I've been a Wikipedia editor for almost 15 years now. In that time, I've
made over 64,000 edits to about 25,000 articles, as well as creating
4,500 articles. Articles I've written or made substantial contributions
to include the areas of ancient Rome, Greece and Egypt, Ethiopia, and
the medieval Empire of Trebizond. Specific articles include Krazy Kat,
Bettie Page, and King Arthur. I enjoy learning about things like these
and sharing what I find through Wikipedia. However, it has come time for
me to ask for your help, because I've been doing all of this for free
and in the last few years it's become harder for me to to make Wikipedia
better on my own.

If you use Wikipedia, you've doubtlessly have
seen those banners asking for donations to keep it going. However,
little if any of that money actually reaches the people who create the
content you came to Wikipedia for. Most of those donations go to
maintain the servers Wikipedia and its related projects run, and to pay
people to keep those servers running and to maintain the code. Some of
it goes to conferences which volunteers and interested people can
attend. The rest goes to the Foundation itself, which is said to support
us volunteers in many different ways, although that help doesn't extend
to paying my bills.

In other words, I see no money for the work
I've done, and it takes a lot of time & energy to do that work. It
takes time to research content -- to find material, evaluate if it is
reliable, figure out how to explain it. It takes time to write and
rewrite articles.

So
think of this as leaving a tip for one of the hundreds of volunteers who
write the information that you use every day. While
you're not required to give money for using Wikipedia, the money helps me to
keep it going. And it lets me know people out there appreciate the work
I've been doing.

Updates

Geoffrey Burling

15 July 201815 Jul

An article I created recently was en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titus_Flavius_Boethus It is a biography of a Roman senator who was a patron of the physician Galen. If you
Buy me a coffee (or contribute more), it would help me to create more articles like this one. Thanks in advance for your support!